To be Hopeful

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory

          Howard Zinn, quoted by Brian McLaren

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I can read

I see the polls

I read the comments from people on posts and memes on Facebook

I can see the rise of hate and racism

The raw lust for power

The desire to control, even to oppress

The desire for retribution

I see lies embraced as truth

Smallness embraced as greatness

And I despair

And that is good

I need to feel the pain!

I need to see the evil.

I need to panic, as Greta Thunberg once suggested

and act as if we are on the “eve of destruction”

because we are

There is no use pretending

I can’t just change the channel

This is our reality

Despair is needed

But so is hope

We need to hold despair and hope together

Hope without despair can lead to complacency

God has this, so I don’t have to do anything

Love always wins (eventually)

So I don’t have to do anything

But despair can lead to complacency as well

If there is nothing that can be done

To create equity, or justice, or even common decency

Why try?

We need despair, to see the world as it is

But

We also need hope. The belief that even as we despair

Even as the world burns

Even as malignant people are worshiped

And domination and cruelty are embraced

That even then

We can do small things

We can do hard things

We can do loving and kind things

We can, and should, do something

For God is working God’s purpose out

As year succeeds to year

God is working that purpose out through us

And we!

We should live “in defiance of all that is bad around us”

We can live in defiance

We need despair

But we also need hope

The despair of Good Friday

The hope of Easter

But above all, we need the reality of Pentecost